"Born and raised in Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S.A.  My mother played accordion; I played vacuum cleaner (the then-version of Guitar Hero) to the radio as a kid.  The first instrument I owned was a banjo- everybody else had guitars- which I strummed in church.  I switched to guitar once I realized it was better for playing to “24 Hours At  A Time” by Marshall Tucker.  Unfortunately, there were a lot of better guitar players than me at the jam sessions held in our basement, so I often played a bass guitar someone left there.  My first amp was a 60-watt Sears Kenmore bass model, unbelievable square-wave distortion!  I also got my first studio experience singing background on soul songs for the Tillman Royals, which was thankfully never released...

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I came to Germany in 1978 with little more than my guitar and a folding pipe to visit my mom and meet my grandparents.  I met a young lady, and as the story goes.... in 1981 I joined my first band “Las Palmas,” which by the time I left in 1988 had become regionally very successful doing dance and Top-40 music.  After a 1-year break, “Nordlicht” and later the “Oldtimers” followed, taking me into the current millenium.  A David LaMotte concert in 2000 really opened my eyes and ears for singer-songwriter acoustic music, and I began to redirect my musical priorities.  During all this time, I also had  “real jobs” which developed into a successful career with a globally productive automobile manufacturer, which I left in 2007 to concentrate solely on making music. Okay, and a few other directly connected things like doing live sound, which led to recording and production of several CDs and ultimately the founding of my own record label “Praxis Gelender Records;”  add to that the “Majik Lounge” concert series, cofounded with my sweetie Margarete Schneider and featuring top-class friends and musical colleagues from around the world in an intimate setting.

 

From  June 2015 through March 2016, due to the request for support from an internationally active Polish corporation in the automobile industry, I once again split the stage between music and business.  As of summer 2016, Majiken and Praxis Gelender have regained the spotlight."